Since deciding on a restaurant to host our rehearsal dinner, Mr. Wallaby and I finally made the trek back to The Woodlands to attend our rehearsal dinner tasting! Yup, that’s right—I definitely didn’t think there was such a thing as a “rehearsal dinner tasting” when we first got engaged, but when Américas Restaurant offered us a tasting before we mailed in the deposit, we raised our hands. Free food—heck yeah!*

To fill you in briefly, Mr. Wallaby and I scored a great deal at Américas—Janine, the events coordinator, allowed us to serve a lunch menu instead of a dinner menu, which will be saving us money big-time. She even threw in free soft drinks. Although the meal would still be a significant cost for Mr. W and I, we loved this restaurant and wanted to offer some old Southern hospitality for our out-of-towners who would be arriving the day before the wedding. Américas serves Southern American fare, and the menu that we chose is named after Iguazu Falls, an incredibly stunning waterfall on the border of Brazil and Argentina.

Here is the mouth-watering “Iguazu menu” that we’d be serving:

Appetizer: Plantain chips and chimichurri

Americans appetizers…. mmmmmm. Personal photo.

Mr. W chowing down on some plantain chips. He’s usually pretty health-conscious, but when he tried one of those, he was like dayyyyummm. Personal photo.

First course: mixed greens with manchego, house herbed crostini, and cilantro dressing.

Ok, so you might notice I stopped taking pictures after the appetizer…That’s because this is a really nice, classy restaurant, and it was packed when we went in for our tasting. I felt really sketch taking too many pictures, so I put my phone away and dug in. And it was mmm-mmm good. Mr. W and I were super excited to share this meal with our loved ones, and we hoped all of our out-of-town guests feel comfortable and taken care of. We did snap one more sneaky picture of me making a cheesy toast to our date night and probably some other lovey-dove ramblings:

Cheers! Personal photo.

Did any of your venues/vendors provide a surprise tasting? Have you and your significant other had some fun breaks from wedding planning?

*Mr. W always likes to point out that this isn’t exactly free…He and I are paying a pretty penny to host the rehearsal dinner at Américas, so the tasting is just a nice benefit.